the end of it then became arrogant, condescending toward the minority and misuse the rules and often would use a proxy power in the committee's to have one person showed up in every amendment even the good ones just because they cut so it's not as if we are looking at angels verses devils, but there is a difference. and one way to express that difference is if you look at what happens after 2000, george w. bush gets elected no coattails at all and in a very weakened position. >> that is a popular vote. >> it would have been easy for democrats to stomp all over him

right from the beginning and basically damage the weakened presidency. the first thing he pushed to initiatives when he got there. no child left behind and tax cuts they move through in a model bipartisan fashion with the impetus coming from george miller and ted kennedy the fact is that in doing so they gave legitimacy to bush and made his presidency stronger. democratic votes enabled those to go through whether you like them or don't like them than we had 9/11 and rallying by both parties behind a range of legislation some of which was controversial but almost unanimous support. and then you move on into the t.a.r.p. program that is rejected first by republicans and it was democrats that saved

and a key member not the same circumstances but without some great momentum. the first thing that happens is every republican votes against his economic plan in both houses acting like a parliamentary minority and now a whole series of programs including the healthcare program where there was a conscious effort to make sure he couldn't get what he wanted to read it's also true he couldn't keep his own democrats together and they have some culpability. with a very significant difference and then you move to 2009. we have a president that has been elected in the landslide with enormous coattails, the clear sign that with the public wanted to read a president that comes in with a 70% approval rating and the worst economy since the great depression. three and half weeks into his presidency he has his economic

stimulus program. now you can argue, and i think that he would, that it was a plan largely hatched in the democratic rooms, but it also had more than one-third of an almost 40% as tax cuts. the end of the single largest tax cut was the extension of the alternative minimum tax which came from chuck grassley who ultimately voted against the plan. three and a half weeks in of a single republican in the house votes for it and three msm at not including those that had their amendments added, and we move on from there from of a single one voting for a reason to deviate to initiative. that for me represents a difference. and a difference would suggest a willingness to try to figure out how you can solve some problems even if there are other places you want to stop on the president and democrats did that with bush at other times but the contrast between where the two parties are now. so they are no angels here but we do have one party that this

not that far from the mid fielder area of the weeks moved and the other party is behind its goal post. >> i see the problems with both sides. i don't like the training because who decides where the middle of the field is and so a lot of republicans would probably say yes but we have set for 40 years we don't want to go there and now at our failure to go there doesn't mean that we have changed but the problem that i see it and it bothers me and it is worse on the republican side though we do have issue after issue i can tell you right now i don't know whether the next nominee for the

supreme court will be nominated by barack obama were y mitt romney. i don't know who will get the chance to make that nomination triet but i will tell you now, and nobody in the room knows what will be but any democrat it's obama that nominates that person, every democrat will vote for him or her and a republican against because that's the situation we've got is that it all comes down to my club against your club, and that is the basic problem. they are only playing to then next election and their own base and they are not worry about solving problems that i agree republicans have been worse, more in lockstep, less willing to engage with issues more what richard murdock was saying it's

fairly typical at least for the republicans that take part in the primaries and i think that's right. >> can you address the question what really struck me it seems the press is allowing one party to redefine where the metal is without acknowledging that this is a new fundamental. >> i think words matter so don't think it's inconsequential weather in the reports the indianapolis star called him a moderate or conservative especially in the climate where that was a weapon that was used against him in the primary. maybe we need to retire for now the word moderate from being used in washington because we have got nobody in the middle. as the book points out in a national study of record there is no republican with a morbid liberal voting record than democrats so now we have

literally the zero overlap between the two parties and maybe moderate isn't the word we should be using. i think you make a good point. lugar has a conservative voting record and a conservative history of half a century in the government and as a major cities a conservative but the reason that the reporters have called him moderate is not because of his voting record but it's because of his manner and in this climate, she has a moderate manner and that he is willing to talk to democrats. he is willing to work with sam and engage with president obama on issues and there are some liberal democrats so maybe that is the language that we should be more careful to use. >> can i just follow a format? i think susan is right. it's about more than ideology it would be a mistake to say this

is nothing but an ideological polarization of the parties. it also has to do with the sort of process of politics and a belief in the legitimacy of the other side and the willingness to engage in the give-and-take. barney frank, you've got to love him pretty well with his ranking republican spencer bachus but once the finished in the committee even though many of his ideas were included, i can't possibly support you because my party has a strategy. it's a political strategy that i can't do anything about it. there is a dynamic at work that affects both parties. there is no question about it. and we may not leave that up enough in the book.

we certainly believe that there is so much now in the strategic partisan behavior it's happening because the parties are operating at a level of parity so that each election there's a chance of the change of party control. there's a kind of relentless to think in those kind of strategic terms, and both of them engaged in that. and so, in that sense i am with mickey completely, but right now there is a sort of fundamental difference between democrats and republicans. republicans partly because of the public and their constituencies are believed that the government has suddenly gotten out of hand. it is just too big and too

expensive. the taxes are too high, and anything associated with of the government accept for the defense department is counterproductive and democrats for their part that were once insurgence themselves are now a more diverse party, and they are a party that is protective of the government to some extent. especially the major elements of the inherited regime going back to teddy roosevelt and woodrow wilson continuing through franklin roosevelt and frankly richard nixon that has a good part of the domestic policy apparatus. they are realistic now. they are not filed by liberals

wanting to socialize activities. it's a joke. the understand that the demographic forces at work and health care cost increases will make and they will be absolutely essential unstable and weekend overtime, so they are fully willing to engage in those negotiations. whenever i see a press report well, republicans say no new taxes and democrats say don't touch. and i said which democrats. the president isn't saying it. the leadership of the parties are saying it. they are perfectly prepared to negotiate. but since everyone understands

if you are serious about the deficits and the debt you don't begin our program they've and imagine how you are going to sort of put that together in the end. and so, i think that is a sort of fundamental difference. democrats are protective, and therefore their political incentives are to play the same hardball with permanent campaign hardball, they are not prepared to put at risk the full faith and credit of the united states. they are not prepared to shut the government down. they just won't do that because they believe the government plays an important role. conservatives, real conservatives want the government that they have, and not a bit more that they need, but they are not wild and crazy

about just dumping on that. and i think we have -- it is almost a radical perspective, not a conservative perspective. again, it is one that is much more protective of the government, and i think the difference is real. >> i want to threw out a theory we may not want to go after the hash tag triet 1 feet. it's all bill clinton's be fivefold, and starting in the 1990's, moderate republicans began leaving the party in large numbers and places like the counties around philadelphia, said the john heinz republicans are not republicans any more and you have created an entirely different electorate to witness what happened in delaware or indiana. i will leave that there and somebody can comment. thank you.

>> thank you. first of all -- [laughter] one is from robert kelley that is a student at the american university, and he says if there is a systemic problem what changes to the panel's feel are the most he is a self-described aspiring policy analyst and the voters getting what they deserve and what are they going to wait on? >> they look at the politicians, no great shakes. >> welcome first there are systemic problems and have this book is about what not to do.

this is not something that is going to be solved by tinkering with the institutions or even the institutional set up. xu some degree it is a cultural problem and that is the tribal politics. and it's also built into a broad media system. we can talk about the primary electorate but people like grover norquist and rush limbaugh and cable television trucks and talk-radio and they might otherwise be willing to look for solutions and can't because if they do they are dead if. they are beyond outrageous and you get no push back because whenever you have a political figure who just try is a little

bit to say that is too much the new world of the media basically tells us that the business model that works is the fox news model and somehow a network of an audience at any given time as to in the half million people they can make more profits than all three network news divisions combined with an audience of 40 million people. and is that true? >> $700 million. it's enormously successful. and if we abandon that business model, if fox news to mauro says all right, here is the new message from roger ailes, can't we all just get along? we may not like what this president likes to do but he is a good man and we can find ways to work with them. i will guarantee you is that within a week there would be a news channel that take the old

message and the two and a half million people at any given time which is 20 million people will gravitate over there and that is where the moneymaking would be. so it's very hard to change this stuff. how do you create a public square you can share a common set of facts and then the date, hammer and talk over assertions. at the same time getting to what mckee said, we have to find ways to broaden the electorate. we are both big fans having spent time in australia big fans of the australian system in the polls. i want to commend the details here, but basically a small fine you can vote for none of the above have lead over many decades to the 95% plus the turnout in australia. high turnout is not an end of itself, the former soviet union had 95% turnout that doesn't reflect health and the political

system. chicago can get to 110% but with the australian politicians will tell you is if you know that your base is going to be fair, their base is going to be there you don't focus on energizing and exciting and schering the crap out of your base or suppressing the oversight to read you have to focus on the voters in the middle and it changes the issues that you talk about. they don't talk a lot in their campaigns about dumbs. they talk about the economy, jobs, the climate, education and things that matter and they don't use the kind of language that we use in our campaign because they're scared or turn off the voters in the middle. at the center that since we don't like mandatory anything now come to be a champion of the mega millions lottery where your ticket is your voting stock of coming and if you look at the last mega millions where people

camped out three days in advance to be given to get a ticket where of course let's face it the chance of winning was less than being struck by lightning twice in a day put a few hundred million dollars into this and we will up their turnout significantly. i think they are an easier way to move in a direction and a lot of things can be done. we have to do some changes in the system including the filibuster. >> can i add a word? >> i fifa to questions go to get their. how to make it better and isn't it the public's fault after dhaka? i think they fit very well together. if you have a mismatch, if you have ideologically polarized parties operating in a separation of power systems you can alter the party's over time and that is what norm has been talking about to moderate the

parties and the best way to do it is to expand so much is possible because those that do not participate now are ones with less absolutely committed polarized views and reinforcement from australia and the dozens of other democracies that have some form of mandatory attendance the other thing is you say we've got these parties let's have a couple system in which they can get something done. that means fundamental reform of the senate's. i believe the united states senate is today the most dysfunctional legislative body in the space world. the very process that in the past looking out at the center

here in the past it would lead people to come together across party lines to try to work out some agreement and now deutsch just the opposite. fighting reinforce the absolute partisan divide between the parties and individuals senators have come to show the individual holds that frankly the partisanship and the culture is such that the senate cannot function under its current rules and that is a big change that is needed. one final thing, maybe a change in the public come sure it is the public's fault. they get frustrated and angry because the economy didn't improve, and they changed the team in the power and created a divided party government and the republican majority that

believed had a public mandate to do just what they said they would do, and they worked hard to devotee and the public hated it. so, it is in a sense when they got what they asked for if not consciously, unconsciously. its registered to vote and had to have the knowledge of the typical attendees. >> it's not going to happen. people are busy and just keeping wife told investing in the two hours reading of the times and "the wall street journal" every day, but it does mean we've got to figure out a way to the it's very hard in the constitutional system to make the choice more

clear to hold individuals accountable. the divided party government has become the dean of american democracy now. it worked under our conditions. it doesn't work now. thank you. >> mckee has some ideas and i want to bring him back in that sort of turn to the audience. can we have some microphones to suchard and we have a lot of hands. this gentleman right up front. yes, sir. >> the external job of the more rigid leaning republican party said it was the voter at some level. it's profitability and the inevitability of the money being the more extremist ideas in the media and elsewhere comes of a

question to me is to what extent can that plank of the money to the media be linked to the greatest rigidity of the republican party whether it is in the campaign finance or elsewhere and it is in the public continuation into the process one that is facilitated by the media and influenced by the it deal logically imbalanced money is that going to have a greater reflection or has it had a greater reflection in the current condition of the republican and democratic party? ..

>> there is not domestic you. thank you so much. right behind you. >> i noticed mr. ornstein's pantheon of views that are still in congress favor mr. lugar will be in a few. it seems once they are on their way out or out the door, they say all the right things. when they are continuing to run, olympia snowe is another great example. what would you suggest we do as a public for others do to encourage politicians in office to the right thing because the right thing to do? >> tom, you can start. i'm curious because he done so much work and then whatever you want to say before. and then i guess, are we closer

pass the time? i usually go over. we have many fascinating questions pending, most of which haven't been answered. let me try to run through a couple of them. the conservative wayne is now the party. it's been embraced by the party. its agenda has been embraced by the leadership. the chairman of the budget committee, paul ryan, very able member is the archetype of that agenda, which should make every tea party are very happy. so it's indistinguishable and date in no way to provide cover for all those moderate who want to do the right being. i don't think said people exist in the republican party.

listen, the answer is grover norquist no new tax pledge. that alone would free the republican party to engage in good faith, sensitive negotiations. everybody knows that our taxes are now at an historic low in the contemporary era and they're going to go out sort of naturally. and with the aging of the population, i guarantee you will be somewhere around 22% gdp. wouldn't it be nice if we could acknowledge that and say what's the most bowl, efficient way to structure a tax system, probably progressive consumption tax direct it in ways to accomplish a whole host of object is. as long as you have that pledge to which members signed, it's

hopeless. the republican party cannot be a player in any constructive resolution of the problems confronting the country. there is no political space for a third-party to occupy. it's based on a presumption. we have two extreme parties and there's this great center to mobilize and i'm deeply skeptical that there's room for such a party and would really play a constructive role. is it going to get worse than it is now instead of just looking worse? and are we en route to the status of greece? not at all. the simple truth is we are almost close to a position with the status quo would solve our problems. that is to say the expiration of the tax cuts pretty much take care of our intermediate deficit

problem and implementation of the cost saving measures strengthened over time in the aca will deal with their long-term health care problem. so we are not that far away and we have other tremendous strengths in our country that would allow us to make the kind of investment to transform the economy, to do with the reality of stagnant wages and a sense of diminished opportunities. we have strengths. we can do it. we need the public to rain and behavior that's destructive and we need political leaders to act forcefully. given enough to bipartisan commissions and searched enough for bipartisan consensus. for sensible hard all politics along these lines.

>> norm, i particularly cutie take the money question. a couple political had a great shared that showed that party polarization in congress was directly correlated with increasing concentrations of wealth from increasing equality went together artisan polarization. and the money question you can handle so many different ways. i'm really concerned about it posed citizens united system with a federal election commission that's completely out of control and with other agencies unable to do anything about it. a lot of money coming in in ways that intimidate political actors until the policy process in a very bad way and the way that will only enhance the quality. one example from north carolina riva group ventures who want to influence the state legislature on a bill prepared a bunch of model commercials that destroyed

members of the legislature. when a gc comment had nothing to do a type of culture. it basically defined in this child molesting aliens out to destroy the fabric of america and show them the commercials and said if we don't get what we want millions of dollars could be spent on commercials just like this. they got what they wanted to give him money. the idea this is not correct team from anthony kennedy was on a different planet in a different universe than the real world of what we face. so there's all of that to do with the marketing model legislation written basically by a signature is biggest plugged right in. it's the gilded age brought up to the 21st century and nothing that we want. i was psyched to find places where i can take issue with tom. so i want to address the question, even if this question. i actually don't believe the

right-wing represents the republican party. we have survey after survey that shows a range of issues self identified republicans do not take the same positions. the tea party consists of older voters who have no clue what the right budget would do on an entitlement program they don't want test for themselves, just for others. so it's not clear to me to supplant necessarily the the way they want and they believe they are problem solvers still in congress. they are completely intimidated for being a little played out old. he still had a few who have taken not to do so. mike crapo comments xp chambliss and tom coburn and the turbine on the other side actually step out on a limb here and it will tell you where we are in tribal politics that when barack obama praised mccain and six, and need to see a republican senate immediately sent an e-mail to

"politico" saying that kills the land. if he is for it, work instead. this is less about ideology now than tribalism. so that's the challenge we have and it's not encouraging moderates are providing space. it's intimidating them. getting into the question of every time i get people who live congress, look at republicans in the psyche been inside a tent we are breathing a gas and suddenly you're outside and say how could i have done not? how could i have acted that way? whenever ideas is to create a shadow congress that consists of former members who span the spectrum, to start a common set of facts and have them debate not in the way congress used to because congress is never a great debating society, the genuine debates and discussions that are going to have huge audiences but can provide a model for how voters who yearn to have a discussion about options are. you conservative notion that

there is something to climate change and have a great debate whether you do anything, a law, with a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade program or through some other mechanism that can actually give people a sense of what our tech choices are instead of having people say maybe scientists have something in an act or not unceremoniously. small steps to provide us with opportunities to change the dialogue. >> we at "usa today" gallup poll that came back on monday. a third of republicans, not a nurse when they asked their ideology call themselves moderates or liberals. a third of the party. in this particular poll for the first time, republicans lost enthusiasm advantage in the presidential race in the reason was because declining enthusiasm. so there's not a republican in washington who describe themselves as a moderate or

liberal, but the third of republicans in the country do. >> just to allays this point, rahm emanuel i say the republican party steeply provided to turn this small government land and no government land. there is a truth that not far. i am told we are now at our time. i want mickey to come back with a few closing comments. a part of this but that hasn't gotten as much attention in season mention that i like the bromides we should ignore chapter, which i would reach of the political system will collect no, no. third party to the, no. budget amendment say no. term limits they say no and public financing of elections no. but then i have a whole bunch of things they say yes to and i propose we have an election between the shadow congress and

the current congress and then we can see who wins. so let me invite everybody to do closing comments. >> just going down a couple of these. does this represent the republican party as a whole. as citizens just said no, but it does represent is who vote in primaries. so it's a matter of you can't he on the ballot. every state in the united states has a sore looser law from which means if you cluster primary come you can't appear on the ballot in november. those need to go. so it's the primary voters who are represented in the party. secondly in terms of what can we do about it, i don't know how many of you are your friends show up at a town meeting, show up for your member of the house or senate is present, participate in the elections, college the radio tv show.

in other words, we need to get citizens engaged. citizens are crazy. 42% of american people are registered as independent. they are fleeing from the party, but they need to be at this meeting can confront and be confrontational with their representatives and senators in favor not going to vote for you if you behave this way. the final question about canopy, repressive? you know, i got to testify on behalf of the american bar association to a committee in the house for the previous president announced thursday reassigning statements that he would decide for himself whether or not he had to obey the law. republicans saw nothing wrong with that. democracy is not about policy.

it's not about policy outcomes. it's about process and i think as long as we continue to focus and do whatever we need to do to get the policy outcome i want, tell us process in constitution. is that all repressive? how do you defy repressive? how about wiretapping without a warrant? is that repressive? i do think we mourn a slippery slope than some people would want to admit. >> season. >> is briefly seen what an achievement it is to write a policy book about washington sold-out on amazon. so congratulations to her two others. >> i want to thank my colleagues, mickey and season and e.j. of course. we are really with you. it's a negative sounding title, but we to agree with you that there are things we can do, building up small things that

can haul produce a lurcher and more informed collect during, changes we can make that would allow the public officials accountable in a way that's very difficult to do now that in the end clear signals from the public and responsible institutional changes, especially within the senate conservative political leaders willing to lay it out and not just say we all have to come together, but listen, this is how we must begin and be forceful. there is a bright future for the country i'm optimistic. >> i would just say finally, first, please buy the book. second, please buy e.j. spoke

and please buy mickey's the.